Wednesday, July 9, 2014

What I Learned At Woodleaf: Part 2

Justin McRoberts recently shared three lessons he learned while serving as Summer Staff coordinator and camp musician at Woodleaf. If you missed yesterday's, you can read it here on Justin's Blog: Real-Life Cost Benefit Analysis.The last lesson will be posted tomorrow.Life, Like Dancing, Is About Joy The song’s low-end rumbles so deeply I can feel it through
the cement beneath my feet, the beat is a steady 4-counts… and the kid in front
of me is missing every one.Of course, he doesn’t care how well he’s doing it or
how it looks. He’s just dancing.

The vast majority of these kids have little to no training
in dance. They might know a few steps to a popular movement like “the Dougie,”
but they don’t all do it with precision. And that’s not the point of it all, is
it.

Nobody here is dancing because they’re trained or qualified.

They’re dancing because it’s fun.

They’re dancing because music makes us want to move.

They’re dancing because they’re with people that care for
them.

They’re dancing because they’ve been told that they are
loved unconditionally by the Creator.

Certainly, we can practice and dance with skill and there is
deep value to doing so. But having skill isn’t what makes movement “dancing” …
I think joy makes movement dancing. Just like joy makes life worth living,..
even worth living with skill.I can so easily get hung up on trying to get life
“right,” that I squeeze the joy out of even something like dancing. There are
few ways to legitimately “do life right,” which makes that goal as troublesome
to achieve as it is boring. In dancing or anything else, joy is a better goal
than precision.